Cuma, Şubat 06, 2015

As a rara avis in
capitalist flora, the value of worker cooperatives are beyond dispute.
Definably, being business entities which are owned and controlled by the
workers, these quasi-social enterprises promise a way different business
organization. Theoritically, profit
maximization is overrided as worker cooperatives generate employment for their member workers. These enterprizes
are diffentiated as they allow workers to ponder upon and make decisions on operational
issues. While doing this, workers benefit from openly held consensus-making
processes, in which each associate can articulate their opinions freely. To
further, As Proudhon divulged, every associate has an indivisible share in the
property of the company. Each worker takes his/her share of the heavy and
repugnant tasks. Each to go through the gamut of operations and instruction, of
grades and activities, to insure that he has the widest training. Workers must
go through all the operations of the industry they are attached to.
Office-holders should be elected and regulations submitted to the associates
for approval. Remuneration to be proportionate to the nature of the position
held, the degree of skill, and the responsibility carried. Every associate to
share in the profits in proportion to the service he has given. Each to be free
to set his own hours, carry on his duties, and to leave the association at will
(Proudhon cited in Guérin, 2009).

Cooperative movements are known to spring to life as early as
19th century. As adversarial waves, they came about in the midst of an
economical conjuncture, in which surplus value appropriated in the pure Machevellian
modus operandi. However, iron laws of
capitalism undermined further expansion and survival of these enterprises. To
this effect, we should evoke a thought of line presciently suggesting the immanent laws preponderated in
capitalist mode of production, which leads alternative modes of production to degeneration
or dissolving. I assume that we may appeal to Marx and Luxemburg to further
detail this thought of line. Being explicitly sympathetic to the movement, Marx
asserted that by deed and instead of argument, they have shown that production
on a large scale, and in accord with behests of modern science, may be carried
on without the existence of a class of masters employing a class of hands; that
to bear fruit, the means of labor need not be monopolized as a means of
domination over, and of extortion against, the laboring man himself (Marx,
1864). On the other hand, adopting a holistic perspective, Marx aimed to shed a
light at the flip side. He acutely argued that these firms “as transitory and
inferior forms, are destined to disappear before associated labor plying its
toil with a willing hand, a ready mind, and a joyous heart” (ibid).
Resoundingly, Luxemburg- in her pamphlet Reform
or Revolution- posited that worker co-ops “can be described as small units
of socialized production within capitalist exchange. But in a capitalist
economy exchange dominates production and, as a result of competition, ruthless
exploitation, i.e. the complete control of the production process by the
interests of capital, becomes a condition for the survival of each enterprise
(Luxemburg, 1908, pp. 45-46). She claimed that “the domination of capital over
the process of production expresses itself in the following ways; Labour is
intensified. The working day is lengthened or shortened, according to the
situation of the market. And, depending on the requirements of the market,
labour is either employed or thrown back into the street” (ibid). I believe
that by relying on arguments reflected by Marx and Luxemburg, we may continue
to conretize the issue at hand. W emay begin with pricing strategy in the
framework of capitalism. It is beyond the shadow of a doubt that pricing
strategy stipulates conventional capitalist firms to come up with a pricing
policy linked with aspects ranging from development and circulation of
commodities to advertising materials, warehouse locations and such. Workers cooperatives
can hardly exist without a pricing strategy either. Pricing strategy is a sine qua non to produce value. Value is
a sine qua non imperative of
capitalist mode of production. Value must be produced and reproduced to survive
in free market. For small units of worker ventures to survive, certain amount
of work loads must be ensured. With an attempt to maintain steady work loads,
worker cooperatives- amongst other things- always seek for a good bargain in
the market. As one simply predicts, striking a good bargain will legitimate and
build further on the exploitation of the usual
suspects; laborers at other competing firms. From another angle, slashing
variable capital entails worker cooperatives to outsource the production processes.
Thanks to deepining molecularity, production processes are more fragmented than
ever. This, in turn, may encourage worker cooperatives to contract capitalist
firms as subcontractors. These companies unwaveringly offer low-cost labour,
such as those in under-developed South. This will legitemate and build further
on so-called First World tendencies
to colonize the labour force by means of finance capital.

Ensuring steady work loads requires reproduction and
absorption of surplus value. As widely known, firms can not effectuate re-investments
relying on internal financing from profits only. However, as Vanek demostrated,
workers may/do not want to re-channel the turnover as they have incentives to
claim higher wages which may result in complete disregard to re-invest in
cooperative (Vanek, 1977). Refusal to re-invest leads to under-investment and
discontinuation of the enterprise. To eliminate this, worker cooperatives
intend to get external financing; generally in the form of bank loans. However,
according to Artz and Kim, worker cooperatives will face difficulties with
obtaining a bank loan given the general unfamiliarity with the structure of
these firms. Unfamiliarity to evaluate the risks and profitability of these
firms are also of concern for outside financial support (Artz and Kim, 2011,
p.24). With this in mind, these enterprises are very likely to fail to secure
structural reproduction, or simply go shrunk or resort to a merger with
capitalist firms. As on the map, consolidation and merger of enterprises cause
an inevitable degeneration; the
capitalization.

Worker cooperatives must persuade their customers. In order to
do this, they must promote their business. Well, how can they do so? They must
simply be active and visible in their community. That they define and
accordingly adress their customer portfolio will surely make a huge difference.
Customers want to let know why they should choose same product over another. To
achieve this, worker cooperatives must develop a coherent marketing strategy
and set realistic targets. All in all, this will require an extensive market research conductable in the
purest competitive, capitalist sense. What do I mean by this? For instance, you
must collect data about competing firms whether cooperatives or those capitalists.
You must be well aware of human psychology and draw on bourgeoisie science so
that you can develop an insightful attitude towards your potential customers.
You must adopt an adequate marketing rhetoric so that your products find a
buyer. You must figure out the scope of your customers and pursue national or
global consumer markets; only to survive. In short, this will disempower worker
cooperatives to do business in an alternative/different manner. They can not
derail and show great deal of enthusiasm to challange the game within
predefined margins.

If we re-route to the history, we will see that worker cooperatives
are sometimes stimulated by regressive regimes. As Marx stressed, plausible
noblemen, philanthropic middle-class spouters, and even keep political
economists have all at once turned nauseously complimentary to the very
co-operative labor system they had vainly tried to nip in the bud by deriding
it as the utopia of the dreamer, or stigmatizing it as the sacrilege of the
socialist. To save the industrious masses, co-operative labor ought to be
developed to national dimensions, and, consequently, to be fostered by national
means (Marx, 1864). Justifying Marx, in the 1960s, the labor minister of
Spain’s fascist dictator General Franco awarded the Gold Medal for Merit in
Work to Mondragón’s Arizmendiarrieta. Decades earlier, in fascist Italy, Benito
Mussolini established the National Fascist Cooperative Agency (Ente Nazionale
Fascista della Cooperazione) and encouraged the expansion of cooperatives in
the farming and food processing sectors as a way to downplay class differences
(Gasper, 2014). Worker cooperatives may be incited with nationalistic motives
at the expense of labor class unity. This, in turn, does harm to class
consciousness. Class solidarity gets hurt due to artifical discriminations.

A brief self-reflexion
instead of a conclusion

Hitherto, I have had to discuss self-management
or workers’ cooperatives in a commercial-laden context. However, I have
realized that I am shackled by the mainstream lexicography of business. Once we
begin to frame self-management in such context, we will do nothing but to
misrecognize it. Self-management can never be reduced to commodities or
services; be it laissez faire or socialist market economy. It is a coherent
overarching concept. It should be understood in a way of social organization. A
different mode of social organization which envisages self-management of individuals
in every respect of ever day life. It should be understood and organized at a macro
structural level. Otherwise, it discursively mis-signifies factories without bosses which serves to render self-management
almost meaningless.

Erhan Özcan

Works Cited

Artz, G. and Kim, Y. (2011). “Business Ownership by Workers:
Are Worker Cooperatives a Viable Option?”, Presented as Working Paper at Dept.
Of Economics in Iowa State University